American teens are sinking their teeth into each other's necks, literally.

Inspired by the "Twilight" series and heartthrob vampire Edward Cullen's chilly charms, teens are taking their love nips a little too far, MSNBC reports, biting each other -- hard -- and then licking the blood.

Bizarre teen behavior has horrified parents for generations, but health officials and other experts are warning this vampire-inspired Count Dracula fad could have serious consequences.

And many teens are getting their blood-sucking fix on the Internet, Avitzur says, noting that sessions spent trolling vampire-related teen websites are on the rise. Groups such as "I drink blood," a category at experienceproject.com, and "I want to be a vampire" at the site 43things.com, are filled with apparent posts from young people with a yearning for hemoglobin.

"Having that thick, warm copper-tasting blood in my mouth is the best thing I can think of!" writes a teenager identified as "GothicGirl10" on MSNBC. "Sometimes my boyfriend lets me feed off him. I let him feed off me as well."

Such talk alarms medical experts, who warn about the dangers of blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis and HIV, as well as the risk of nasty infections. Typically, 10-15 percent of human bite wounds become infected, MSNBC reports.

"If you break the skin, your mouth is pretty dirty," Dr. Thomas Abshire, a pediatric blood and cancer specialist and spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, tells MSNBC. "The human mouth flora is dirtier than a dog or cat's."

Also concerning is the fact that this biting is often done to brand another person, experts say.

"If you think about it, there is such glamorization in those teen vampire movies, they make it seem so sexy and appealing and intriguing," Avitzur says. "It's all mixed up with passion."

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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 5)

One of the things that makes vampirism attractive to teens, as well as those in their twenties is the idea of immortality. Adopting the pretense that one is immortal separates you from the crowd, and to teens, being 'special' is very important.

Another thing that makes blood-drinking so attractive is that most people find it revolting, and that gives the pretender an air of power. "I do what you don't dare to do... I'm that dangerous (and sexy)"

Teens like to be feared, especially if that fear factor is associated with primal sex. It's like the ultimate bad-boy or bad-girl appeal. What could be scarier than that strange girl over there who dresses in black lace and is rumored to drink blood? How sexy is that young man whose passion (for you) is so overwhelming that he isn't merely satisfied with touch... he wants to drink you...taste your essence. It's the romance novel to the thousandth power.

Blood isn't particularly good tasting. I mean, we've all tasted it because we've all had a cut in our lifetimes. It's not nutritional, in fact, it would make us sick to our stomachs if we were to ingest any more than a minute amount. It gives no sustenance, in fact, the only thing that can be achieved by drinking blood is that whomever is doing it gets to live out a fantasy that is much better a fantasy than a reality. This isn't an opinion. The 'idea' of blood drinking is much 'hotter' than actually doing it. The fantasy is all of it.

When people try to live out their vampire fantasy, they learn that it's a lot messier and more painful than they thought. Having one's neck bitten into does not throw you into a swoon of frenzied sexual passion. It makes you go, "OW, get the heck away from me. You're crazy, dude. Stop it!"

You THINK you want it...but you don't.

What's hot about vampires is that they exist in our minds. Anyone who seriously dabbles in bloodplay may be coming from an entirely different set of issues. It's not a sexy thing when it comes from abuse, or from witnessing a bloody crime. That's not hot, BUT, sometimes this is how certain people deal with what happened to them. Like, "I'm going to do something so bloody, because I saw something so bloody when I was little that this is the only way I can master my feelings over it."

In the end, the number one reason for doing this kind of thing is because you want people to think of you as a dark, dangerous, isolated and wondrous creature of mystery.

REAL vampires...are human beings with blood fetishes. There is nothing supernatural about them. It doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from an abusive childhood, or from the witnessing of a bloody crime.

FAKE vampires are created by idolizing the vampires from popular fiction.

In the end, it needs to be known, as it is mentioned in the article: it's NOT healthy. It's dangerous. It's painful and you can only know just how NOT SEXY it is when you're standing in the mirror, looking at your bloody bruised self, wondering what happened to your life, and how it went this far down.

I agree; your reply was more helpful than the article. I mean, the old "your mouth is dirtier than your dog's" is not a very powerful argument, and it probably won't pack much weight for people who are actually considering doing this revolting and utterly pathetic thing. Emphasis on "pathetic." Trying to live out your vampire fantasies by harming another person or allowing yourself to be harmed in such a manner is truly pitiable. I hope these poor teens seek the help they need.

Just goes to show you how little respect kids have for what their parents teach them and how little parents actually try to teach them. You have to be a complete idiot to think your going to turn into something immortal by drinking what makes you mortal. I will gladly become a vampire hunter though. Targeting and getting rid of the soon to be grown up idiots of the next generation will be my pleasure. Stupid people are one less thing we need coming on to the scene these days. I already get my fill of them at Walmart, and Mcdonalds. Http://ww.savecreatively.com has what you need to save money and avoid being one of the senseless mass that just hand it over.

Just how Big of a Bowl of Stupid are these kids eating each morning? Just maybe these sort of kids have way tooooo much free time upon their hands! Hey Parents!!! Be Parents! Give your kids some chores to do every day! Make them apart of the family unit by having them help alot around the house & home! They're just BORED in their minds, so they look to act out something dumb and off the cuff. If they have BUSY Hands, then the minds are not so bored...Parents...Get Doing Your Jobs as PARENTS! That doesn't just mean going to work each day, but making your kids good people within their lives, Even if it's a Hard Case Kid!

I agree that this is a scary and serious problem. However, anyone who has read the Twilight books knows that this series is just being used as a scapegoat. The teenagers in this book do not bite each other and lick the blood off of one another. Actually, Edward, the vampire, and his family do not feed off of humans at all. There are, of course, other vampire stories out there that have them feeding off of one another in a fit of passion. Twilight is not one of them. So shift the blame somewhere else people!

True Edward does not suck Bella’s blood, but there are plenty of instances where Edward's behavior toward Bella is entirely abusive. For example, the whole "I don't like Jacob so I'm going to break your car to prevent you from going to see him" situation is pretty abusive, no? The worst part is how his behavior is actually seen as romantic. His actions are justified by his "love" for her. It teaches teenagers that abusive behavior is romantic/sexy/desirable. The same applies here: blood-sucking is seen as romantic/sexy when in reality sinking one’s teeth into someone else's skin and drawing blood is actually quite abusive. Inflicting pain on your partner is by definition, abuse. In other vampire stories, do vampires justify victimizing women with love? I don't think so. Indirectly, this Twilight nonsense does have something to do with the blood-sucking idiocy. So I really don't feel all that bad if Twilight takes the heat…

vampire_sux-if you read the books you would know Edward disabled the car for the protection of Bella. Controll had nothing to do with it. Edward (and all other vampires) believed wolfs (which is Jacob) are dangerous. Edward did everything he could to protect Bella. Including leaving her himself. READ the books before you make judgement!

Twilight is the escape goat for all things now. How about True Blood or Vampire Diaries? THEY actually show vampires sucking human blood. Vampire Diaries is targeting teens MORE than Twilight is. How about put the blame on the parents? Shouldn't they be monitoring what their kids are reading and watching on tv or internet?

Absolutely agree! Twilight is taking the rap for all of the Vampire flicks out there. True Blood is the worst... they feed off humans in every episode, nothing like that goes on in Twilight. Maybe if some of the folks writing these articles ever watched these movies or read these books they would understand that! But hey, when you mention Twilight, people read your blog so maybe that's all this is about. Get a clue people!!!!

I completely agree with twilight_sux....Edward really is too controlling and overpossessive of Bella, to the point where it does seem abusive. Taking apart your girlfriend's car so she can't go see her friends? Really? Yes they are werewolves and are "dangerous," but remember that it was Edward's vampire brother who tried attacking Bella, and it was a vampire who hunted her down, etc etc. So is Edward really "protecting" her from the big bad wolves? Or is he being controlling and abusive? I'm going with the latter.

Sorry the comment got cut off somehow...Anyway what I was trying to say is that I did not interpret the story as Stephanie Meyer intended. I and I'm sure other women out there as well would not appreciate some guy breaking my car because I wanted to go see my friends. My life, my decision. End of story. The bottom line is, Edward's behavior, regardless of his intention, is wrong because he assumes he has the right to control Bella's actions.As far as the other shows go, perhaps they deserve some blame as well. (I don't know, I refuse to watch because I'm quite sick of vampires). All I meant to say is that Twilight is not completely free of blame as Bookworm seems to suggest.

Thank you very much for agreeing edward_is_a_pansy. I love the name btw. :)

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